Sometimes you need a craft that is also a stay-at-the-table-and-don’t-run-around-the-house activity. This is one of those…

Basically, I wrote the word KIND on a giant piece of newsprint. (I pride myself on writing fonts by hand but this is not one of my best examples.) Then I gave Lydia a STACK of old magazines, a pair of scissors and a glue stick. I had her look through the magazines until she found a picture of clothes.

Then she could cut out the clothes and glue it on the word KIND. Remember our verse says we should put on KINDNESS as if it were our CLOTHES. So, here we are putting CLOTHES on the word KIND. A little backwards but I think it reiterated the point!

My tips & thoughts:
1. This thing actually took us 2 different days! It’s very time consuming because she really looked through the magazines for the clothes she liked best! (Maybe it’s a girl thing?!)

2. She cannot see how to cut out a small picture when it is in the middle of a giant picture. For example, if she wanted to cut out a kid’s shirt and that kid was on a swing in the middle of a playground, I had to draw a box around the shirt and make sure the lines extended to the end of the paper. Then she could see where her scissors needed to begin & go.

3. We got to talk about how all the clothes got “put on”. The gloves go on the hand, the buttoning of the pants, the hat on the head, the dress versus the shirt. It was a good conversation starter for “putting on” kindness.

4. Use a good pair of scissors. I have these random plastic things that I discovered in my craft stuff. I am officially throwing them away and buying a real pair of scissors. They could not cut magazine paper without chewing the edges!

5. We hung her KIND SIGN on the front of her closet door. She thought this was so smart. Now every day she stands next to it to admire it. And she usually says, “I like my sign!” or something equally profound. Unfortunately, it kinda reminded me of the day when she’s 14 and pulling pictures out of magazines and taping them to her walls…

I have been so out of touch with my normal life the past few days! I was in California for a vacation/bloggy event/family renunion. My kids are wonked (is that a word?) by the time zones, our house is a mess and still the first thing Lydia says to me when we get home is, “I want to make a craft!”.

So, we jumped right back into our Fruit of the Spirit activities yesterday. I randomly picked an orange to remind us of KINDNESS.* It seemed like a fruit you might share, so orange it is!

I was googling Fruit of the Spirit a few weeks ago and ran across some little books called The Bird With The Word Talks About…by Harvest House Publishers. There are 9 books each covering one of the fruits of the Spirit. The website I found it on showed no pictures whatsoever but the books were only $1, so I bought them all!

I was surprised when the books arrived because they are almost like little pamphlets. They are mini-sized with no color pictures. But Lydia thinks they are so fun. The books aren’t amazing or have some unbelievable insight but they do a good job of introducing and giving a solid definition of each Fruit. The Kindness book was about a clown that invited the animals (the main characters of the book) to a Be Kind To Animals Day at the circus. The animals are excited except for the snail. He feels left out because no one will like him. The other animals get ticked that he is ruining their fun. Then the Bird reminds everyone to be kind and nice to snail and to each other. (Really, it was a little more clever than THAT!) Lydia enjoyed it.

Then we picked out Colossianss 3:12 as our scripture verse:

You are God’s chosen people. You are holy and dearly loved. So put on tender mercy and kindness as if they were your clothes.

I love this one because it lends itself to so many great activities (I’m thinkin’ collages of clothes, dress up time, dress up an orange day and more!). As we read the verse, Lydia was already confused. She said, “What are they wearing? What are they wearing?”

So, I asked her to get a costume out of her costume box. She of course, brought me a tiara. I asked her what we do when we get out our crowns.

Lydia: I don’t know.

Me: We look at it and say, “Oh! How pretty! A beautiful fairy princess crown!” Then what do we do?

Lydia: I don’t know.

Me: Then we put it on and say, “Oh, Lydia! You are a beautiful fairy princess!” (I put the crown on her.) Then what do we do?

Lydia: (stands up straighter, smiles and pretends to be a fairy princess)

Me: We pretend to be a fairy princess! We talk to all our fairy friends! We say hello to all the princesses!

Then I took the crown off her head and said, “Now, let’s pretend this is our KINDNESS CROWN.” Then we went through the entire conversation again…

Me: What do we do when we see our KINDNESS CROWN?

Lydia: (in awe) I don’t know!

Me: We look at it and say, “Oh! This reminds us to be kind! And nice to everyone we meet.” What do we do next?

Lydia: (shyly) Put it on?

Me: That’s right! Put it on and say, “Oh, look! Lydia is wearing a KINDNESS CROWN. She is so kind!” Then what?

Lydia: (still in awe and puts her arms out again like a fairy princess)

Me: That’s right! We use kindness! We are nice to everyone we meet. Lydia helps people and gives to others.

Then I handed her a few of her stuffed animals. We pretended the animals were having a bad day (they were mean, or someone was mean to them) and I asked Lydia what to do for them since she was wearing the KINDNESS CROWN. She usually came up with an idea like, “Let’s play a game with him!” or “I’ll give you a hug!”

But she was getting it! She was being kind with the same excitement as when she pretends she’s Snow White! Later on when she started playing Doctor or some other game, she ran up to me and said, “Mommy! Mommy! I need my KINDNESS CROWN!” because one of her animals needed some kindness.

I honestly could not have planned this better. She was totally acting out the verse and getting the idea behind PUTTING ON KINDNESS. It was awesome. I can’t wait to do more with this Fruit of the Spirit!

*a word about the Fruit of the Spirit. Some translations give the following nine fruits: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I’m using the NIRV with Lydia, so we are doing: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, good, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

orange photo by fr antunes

crown photo by swamibu